Deadly peril and quick thought are comrades ever. At the instant, something soft and slimy flicked my face, and drew backward. It was round my neck the next moment, but my hand was there already. Soft and slimy, and very cold, it tightened, not with a steady pressure, but by a succession of contractile spasms, through which I realised with a new horror that the cord itself was as living as the arm that threw it. But for my hand, I should have been strangled instantly. As it was, my utmost straining hardly sufficed for breathing, and I knew that I must act quickly. The Killer, supposing that I must already be reduced to impotence, was endeavouring to drag me toward him by the living rope he held. An idea came to me. I loosed the axe, and drawing out the clasp-knife, I opened it with my teeth. Then, with a sudden wrench of the left hand, I got space for a moment to thrust it up within the ring, so that as the pressure came again it closed on the sharp blade and helped to cut itself as it did so. I pressed the knife outward with all my strength and the next instant the deadly noose had parted. I snatched at the loathsome cord as it writhed backward, let the knife drop, caught at the axe with my free hand, and allowed myself to be dragged forward. Simple in conception, I realised now that my idea was more difficult in execution. My opponent no doubt considered me to be strangled and insensible. My intention was to take him by surprise, and to strike him down with a sudden blow. But where he stood was in absolute darkness, and I did not know the length of the cord. If I rose too soon, in the half-light of the central chamber, I should defeat my purpose, even if I were not an easy mark for any weapon he had available. If I waited too long it might be equally disastrous. Fortune helped me. He moved his foot as the cord shortened. He was within three feet of where I lay as he did so. I loosed the cord, so that he staggered back as the weight left it. Then I leapt, and struck. The blow must have caught him fairly on the side, but (as I knew afterward) it did not break the skin. The body gave way before it, and was flung against the wall, with a great rattling of the arms upon it. I struck again, missing him, I think, but with a blow that swept the wall and scattered the javelins. Pandemonium followed. With a high whistling squeal he fled down the dark hall and, knowing it to be my one chance to give him no time for recovery, I followed blindly, with sweeping blows that got him more than once, and raked the walls of their weapons. It drowned the rustling in the roof, which had gone unheeded through the more urgent dangers, and which had been accompanied at times by a plaintive chattering noise, by no means formidable.